White House Oranaments & Inauguration Crowd Pictures

Without doubt the process of electing a President for the US Citizens, in 2016, will forever remain a story for the historians and linguists to expand and deliberate. Words were taken from cartoon character titles, pulled out of obscurity, inverted from the New Testament, and all used for effect during debates and press conferences. Words like supercilious, disingenuous, deplorable, and irredeemable were suddenly on the tip of tongues for comedy routines, social media posts, editorials, and popular meme’s or video’s.

Then came the moment, Election Day November 8th, when each journalist readied themselves to be first to call the election. While much of Hawaii would be still at work and commuters in California are still stuck in their infamous gridlocked freeways; their exit polls become real votes to the media and the phrase “call the election” is cloaked as “predicted”. All this to have a final story for 11pm news on the east coast. However, as the polls began to close on the West Coast, while many network and cable news stations and online journalists were cautiously and with great favored optimism pronouncing the wife of #42 the new #45th President. One news source used their local observation to NOT call Hillary Clinton the winner. Had the L.A. Times begun to digest the obvious absence of enthusiasm (aka minimal signage and bumper stickers) in California for Hillary Clinton. Had they sealed this observation with a conclusion differing from all others, when on November 7th she pulled her fireworks show for a victory event on Election Night?

Since 1981, The White House Historical Association annually honors, in order of sequence, a president or significant White House anniversary with a collectible, American made ornament. The 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a Democrat), was honored for 2017. There are two distinctive elements of irony in the theme chosen for recognizing Roosevelt, given the general assumption it was to be a Clinton in office and if the design was established and approved before Nov 9th.

First being “his remarkable journey to restore the faith of the American people”

Secondly “The shape of the ornament is reminiscent of the silhouette of a tabletop radio – similar to those many Americans had in their homes and used to listen to the president’s reassuring Fireside Chats”. While many of equated Trumps affinity for Twitter to “Fireside Chats” in that they reassure the citizens of the President’s good intentions and best will for the Nation, despite different interpretation by the media. Furthermore, it is Trump who has broadened the public’s interest in the events of the Executive office, much as Roosevelt did by expanding an area for the Press in the White House.

While much has been said about the crowd size on Inauguration Day. However, the official portrait of the event by long time Inauguration photographer disproved well circulated media depictions using early arrival images as a basis for crowd size. It is ironic the Associations’ liaison to the National Park Service, Jonathan Jarvis, unprecedented release of a photograph to press, was a premature and thus inaccurate portrayal of the crowd, to the press. This is the same Jonathan Jarvis who earlier in 2015 was reprimanded for an unauthorized use of the NPS logo in a book which commemorated the Parks centennial, and he was removed from authority with their Ethics office. Therefore, with a similar distortion of ethics by Jarvis, one has to be concerned the NPS inauguration crowd photo will appear in the Association publications and documents.

Nevertheless, call it fate or Providence the 2017 ornament will coincide with an unprecedented election that time will tell if it plays out as an administration that similarly restored the faith of Americans in the agreement of government with the benefit of citizens.